After the fall of the Tokugawa government in Japan around 1867, and with the rise of the following Meiji Restoration, Buddhism in Japan was reformed and disestablished in favor of Shinto. This period, beginning in 1868 and carrying on until roughly 1945 (the end of World War II), was a period of prominent nationalism across the country of Japan and was dominated in large part by the religious traditions of Shrine Shinto and Confucian principles of loyalty to the Japanese state and the emperor.
Buddhism
Japanese Buddhism at this time was undergoing a process of spiritual and moral renewal. Many of the Meiji criticisms of the religion during the Tokugawa period – namely financial as well as moral corruption – were in fact justified. In order for Buddhism to retain its relevance and at least some status among the Japanese people, reform was a necessity.
Buddhism seemed for a time to be under attack by every other religious tradition in Japan. Shinto’s criticism was that it was “decadent and foreign,” while Confucianism claimed it was deceptive and greedy and Christianity disputed its veracity on purely doctrinal grounds. Even those with a more secular bent opposed Buddhism as being out of fashion in comparison to modern Western science and philosophical teachings, leading Buddhist priests to send priest-scholars west to study and produce a plethora of Buddhist scholarship.
Christianity
Christianity in Japan also underwent major changes during the Meiji Restoration. When the preceding Tokugawa government lifted the ban on Christianity in 1873, Christian missionaries were able to openly preach to the Japanese for the first time. While Christian missionaries had been in Japan since the late 1850s, it was not until this time they began to achieve real results. While Christianity appeared to be well on its way to flourishing as a Japanese religious tradition in its own right, the successes of the missioners were in actuality relatively short-lived.
Unlike other imported religious traditions in Japan, such as Buddhism, Christianity was not a religion that lent itself well to compromise. While other traditions were able to coexist with native Shinto practices and beliefs in a kind of mutual synthesis, Christianity asked not only for the full acceptance of its own teachings but for the renunciation of all others. The national pride felt by the Japanese also hindered their acceptance of Christianity, as the latter forbade them to participate in various customs and semi-religious activities that were as much a part of Japanese heritage as religious tradition.
The initial acceptance of Christianity had much to do with the Japanese view of it as a “spiritual culture of the West,” at a time when the Japanese were open to new Western ideas of science and government. Christian missionaries opened schools for Japanese youth where they taught English as well as Christian doctrine, garnering many of their converts from among the young people who attended their schools.
By the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education, the Japanese government had separated education and religious instruction on the presumption of religious freedom, though in truth it had more to do with supplanting the Western, Christian influence in favor of supporting Shinto and the emperor. As Western thinking and philosophy became more widely known among the Japanese, it became clearer that one could accept the knowledge of the West without having to accept Christianity, and Christianity did not become the major religion in Japan it hoped it would be.
New Religions
Another marked religious movement in this period was the ascension of the New Religions, religious movements branching off of the main Japanese traditions that first appeared in the Tokugawa Period. The religious formalism of this earlier period failed to inspire many of the people of Japan, particularly the lower classes who were suffering under economic hardship. People at this time were looking for a spiritual renewal, which often came in the form of newly formed traditions based off of the older traditions.
The founders or organizers of these New Religions were often living individuals who offered appealing forms of worship, promising solutions to all of life’s problems through the acceptance of their faith. Once a New Religion was established, scriptures were organized, as well as priesthood, specific doctrines and worship practices. These religious movements were different from preexisting traditions in their appeal to a more individual faith as opposed to that of the family or geographical group, but demonstrated continuity as well in that the persistent themes of Japanese religious history are present in their doctrine.
The religious currents in Japan from 1868 to 1945 demonstrate the sometimes volatile religious structure apparent throughout Japanese religious history. While Japan has a history of being uniquely accommodating in terms of its acceptance of new ideas, the amalgamation of forces that combine to steer a nation on its course through history can make even a country as obliging as Japan stand in need of renewal and reform.
Sources:
Earhart, H. Byron. Japanese Religion: Unity and Diversity. 4th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004.
Earhart, H. Byron. Religion in the Japanese Experience: Sources and Interpretations. 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1997.
